Mad Quickies: Scenes from a Post Apocalypse

It’s no secret that I have a fondness for post-apocalyptic art and dystopian themes. Giant talents in that genre, Lori Nix and Katheen Gerber meticulously create intricate dioramas and then masterfully light and photograph them. Working out of their Brooklyn apartment, their process takes years. When they completed their 8-years-in-the-making series THE CITY, it was featured in our Quickies. THE CITY was an exploration of interiors. Now they have unveiled EMPIRE, a study of outdoor environments and it is a glorious dystopian masterpiece resulting from a brilliant, gentle and lovely collaboration between two extraordinarily patient and gifted people.

Landscapes are more than a visual record of an environment. They also capture the emotional, sometimes spiritual, essence of a place. ‘Empire’ presents a world transformed by climate uncertainty and a shifting social order as it stumbles towards a new kind of frontier. These places are eerily beautiful but also unsettling in their stillness and silence. Long ago man entered the landscape and forced nature to his will. Once grand and emblematic of strength and prosperity, these landscapes now appear abused and in decay, and it is uncertain how they will continue to (d)evolve.